A woman had her DNA tested through Ancestry.com. A parent match came up with someone she didn't recognize. Upon further review she learned he was the fertility doctor her parents were seeing at the time her mother conceived, in Idaho Falls, Idaho. She hadn't even been told by her parents they had any trouble in conceiving her before she found out about this. Nor were they prepared for what they learned either!

The doctor was a prominent LDS obstetrician in Idaho Falls, now retired. The biological mother and her husband had no idea the doctor was the sperm donor who mixed his sperm with that of her husband, who had a low sperm count by means of artificial insemination.

The family is still reeling in shock from this revelation. And are suing the doctor for malpractice.

"In the early 1980s, Rowlette’s parents, Howard Fowler and Sally Ashby, were married and living in Idaho Falls, not far from the Wyoming border.

The pair was having a hard time conceiving. Mortimer diagnosed Fowler with a low sperm count and Ashby with a tipped uterus, a condition in which the uterus tilts toward the spine, according to the lawsuit.

The doctor recommended that Ashby undergo a procedure in which she would be inseminated with both sperm from her husband and an anonymous donor who matched the couple’s specifications, the lawsuit says. The couple requested a donor who was in college and taller than 6 feet with brown hair and blue eyes — and Mortimer told them that he had found a donor matching their description, the suit says.

But the lawsuit claims that when Mortimer performed the procedure in the summer of 1980, he used his own sperm. He did not match the couple’s specifications.

Ashby became pregnant and, in May 1981, Mortimer delivered his own child — never divulging the secret, according to the lawsuit.

Mortimer remained Ashby’s doctor for several years until the she and her husband moved to Washington state.

“Dr. Mortimer cried when Ms. Ashby informed him they were moving,” according to the lawsuit. “Dr. Mortimer knew Kelli Rowlette was his biological daughter but did not disclose this to Ms. Ashby or Mr. Fowler.”

It wasn’t until last year that the decades-long secret started to unravel — when Rowlette sent in a DNA sample and it told her something was off.

In July, Rowlette, from Benton County, Wash., received the notification about the match from Ancestry.com. She told her mother, expressing her “disappointment in the unreliability of the service” — and her mother recognized the doctor’s name, according to the lawsuit.

“Ms. Ashby contacted Mr. Fowler, now her ex-husband, and relayed the information she obtained from Ancestry.com. Mr. Fowler was also devastated by the news,” the lawsuit states, explaining that the parents “painfully labored” over whether they should tell their daughter.

But several months later, Rowlette discovered the shocking truth on her own.

In August, Rowlette was helping to sort through her parents’ old papers when she ran across her birth certificate. It had been signed by the doctor who delivered her — Gerald Mortimer, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that Rowlette was “horrified” and contacted her parents “in a panic to relay what she had found.”

After news of the lawsuit, a spokeswoman for Ancestry.com said in a statement Tuesday that DNA testing “helps people make new and powerful discoveries about their family history and identity.

“We are committed to delivering the most accurate results, however with this, people may learn of unexpected connections,” it read. “With Ancestry, customers maintain ownership and control over their DNA data. Anyone who takes a test can change their DNA matching settings at any time, meaning that if they opt out, their profile and relationship will not be visible to other customers.”

Since the situation came to light, Rowlette and her parents have been “suffering immeasurably,” the lawsuit says.

The family is suing Mortimer and Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls, accusing them of medical negligence, fraud, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract."

Good old Idaho Falls, my hometown. Where the doctors have a license to practice murder and get away with it. In the heart of the Morridor. This doctor may as easily have other babies he fathered. The court may order more DNA tests done on the children he helped sire during his years as an obstetrician.

Oh, and he was called to the position of temple president in 2009 for the Cebu Philippines temple. What a guy! (not.) More like a douche.

From the articles on this, the LDS MD in Idaho was substituting his own sperm without the knowledge or consent of the mother- and father-to-be. They knew and had given their approval for the artificial insemination, of course, but evidently their stated requirements ("tall, blue-eyes..." in this case) were ignored (not to mention that it would undoubtedly never have occurred to them as a possibility that the doctor was going to use the doctor's own sperm).

Couple of intersections for me in this story:

1) My Mom was told that SHE had a tipped uterus, and this is why she and my father were unable to conceive a baby during the first three years of their marriage--which, in one way or another, led to my eventual conception by her brother-in-law. I grew up hearing the phrase "tipped uterus" as a normal part of everyday life...and had NO idea (at all!!!) of the actual facts behind my own conception. (My Mom had been told that she COULD NOT conceive...except that...with her brother-in-law, she DID...and that is why I can type this right now.)

2) My first OB-GYN, who (in the very early years of artificial insemination), financed his way through medical school, in large part, by selling his sperm...without ever contemplating or understanding the real life complications which would, or could, ensue if there were many dozens, or possibly even hundreds, of his own genetic offspring born, within four or five years of each other, either in (or directly around) Washington, DC--none of whom would have had even the remotest idea that they could be siblings to each other. This certainly became one of the "Oh, the tangled web we weave..." moments in American medical history.

The woman who did the Ancestry DNA test certainly had no idea that she could be the genetic daughter of anyone but her father, and I feel for her...as well as for however many half-siblings she has that neither she, nor they, know exist.

"Many women who have a retroverted uterus worry that it will affect their future fertility. However, this condition does not appear to affect conception in any way, and most women with retroverted uteruses will go on to experience healthy pregnancies.

If you are experiencing difficulties getting pregnant, it could be a sign of an underlying reproductive problem. Be sure to contact your health care provider for assistance."

"Gerald Elbert Mortimer, 66, Ammon 5th Ward, Ammon Idaho Stake, called as president of the new Cebu City Philippines Temple. President Mortimer's wife, Linda Gay McKinnon Mortimer, will serve as temple matron. President Mortimer is the area medical adviser for the Idaho Pocatello and Idaho Boise Missions, and serves as a Sunday School teacher and temple ordinance worker. He has served as president of the Philippines San Pablo Mission, stake president's counselor, bishop, bishop's counselor and ward Young Men president. A retired physician, he was born in Payson, Utah, to William Earl and Margaret Eastmond Johnson Mortimer.

"A ward Relief Society president and temple ordinance worker, Sister Mortimer served with her husband as he presided over the Philippines San Pablo Mission. She has also served as a stake Relief Society president's counselor, ward Young Women advisor, Primary teacher and Sunday School teacher. She was born in Logan, Utah, to Glen and Thelma Linda Hatch McKinnon."

Wasn’t there an law & Order svu episode along these same lines?I vaguely remember it,since they had so many seasons .Some guy, can’t remember if he was s scientist or doctor, but he was “ donating “his own sperm to a bunch of women in a fertility clinic, to create a master race of something. I think he ended up having babies all over NYC alone.

I know him. Yes he was a stake president in Idaho Falls and went on to be an MP in the Philippines.

His local reputation has been spotless, until now. Those that know him are in disbelief that someone they respect so well did something like this. At least, so far, no one is sticking up for him. I think he is going to be paying out a lot of money.

Wowzer. It would be awful to find out that your father is actually some tool of a mindfucking cult who has spent his whole life giving ALL his time, talent, and everything with which the Lard blessed him (i.e., which he earned through his education and experience), to said cult because he thinks he can buy his way into heaven.

I mean, it's hard enough for those who have known that all our lives. Haha.

I have a good friend who got a shocker from 23 And Me that led her to having to have a long talk with her mother. She actually knew her mom found out she was pregnant a few weeks before she and her husband were married. So what--never any family secret. But my friend never had any reason to think that it didn't mean the man her mother was engaged to at the time and married 8 months before her birth wasn't her biological father.

I hope that part of the lawsuit is that they make him fork over the records of every baby conceived through artificial insemination in his office and make him pay for DNA testing for any who want it.

I'm amused at the thoughts I'm having regarding the defense that may be mounted on his behalf.

Per the article, the lawsuit, apparently involving only the daughter, demands payment of damages for "...medical negligence, fraud, battery, negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract."

First off, what neligence? The doctor did it on purpose! The prayer shouldn't be for "negligent infliction of emotional distress", but for INTENTIONAL infliction of emotional distress. Why did they not specify 'intentional'? Possibly to not give the insurance company the easy out of asserting a sort of escape clause: insurance companies can avoid payment for the tortious results of intentional actions.

Breach of contract certainly looks like a real winner, but in my mind only the parents can bring that action. From what I've read, they don't seem to have joined the lawsuit.

The plaintiff "owes" her existence to the actions of the defendant. Is she claiming that she's been cheated out of something because of her 'faulty' creation? Does she want a do-over? What are her damages? Loss of reputation? What has she lost? Does she now not love the parents who raised her?

When the tortious actions were committed, the plaintiff didn't even exist. The parents agreed that other men's sperm could compete to be the plaintiff's father and I absolutely agree that per the parents' instructions, the defendant's sperm were not to be in the competition. They, the parents, should get their money back... If they, the parents, want anything more, they need to give the kid back to the doctor and redo the temple sealings...

It would be interesting to see whether she and the doctor (and their families,) form any ties/bonds following the lawsuit/shockwaves etc.

They are blood relatives after all. He was fine with her not knowing all those years, and had even bonded with her as her mother's doctor before her family moved away to Washington state.

It's really pathos at its finest. Once he's been sued he's going to have second thoughts as well. Did he really believe his life would go untouched after putting his DNA on Ancestry? Maybe he wanted his DNA offspring to find him, in his heart of hearts. Does that make him a bad person for his coverup? It would depend on his motive.

The woman and her husband accepted that the sperm donor was anonymous. That was the deception by the doctor, and coverup.

I agree, it arises to the level of an assault ie, unwanted touching without consent of the woman mother.

And a milieu of ethical violations of his oath as a doctor.

He's pretty much screwed at this point. His LDS standing is only going to make his fall that much more profound IMO. It was brazen what he did. Why he put his DNA on Ancestry? He must be more fool than he was a doctor. He'd have to know he was going to be outed eventually.

On the one hand, the statute of limitations has probably expired. On the other, maybe the clock starts when the victim (the child? the parents) becomes aware of the criminal act. In the latter scenario there surely could be imprisonment.

CNN incidentally has an article on the story in which they did not mention the Mormon angle. Superficially the case would seem unrelated to the people's religion, though I personally suspect that the sense of hierarchy and entitlement that motivated the doctor brings it into the same realm as the Joseph Bishop crimes. If so, there is a Mormon component.

Amyjo Wrote:------------------------------------------------------->> There's the possibility he may face prison time.>

I certainly would appreciate any path of action that would criminally penalize Dr. Mortimer. It would be satisfying to so many people to hear the clang of a jail cell and know he's inside that cell.

But I still go back to the thought about civil lawsuits: there have to be damages. Yes, emotional damages count, but...

The plaintiff did not even exist when the tort was committed. The 'damage' the defendant complains of is exactly the act that caused the plaintiff to exist. Maybe I'm too wrapped up in the existentialism of these events? She only exists to sue him because he did what she's suing him for...

Best sentence of the day: "And a milieu of ethical violations of his oath as a doctor."

Here's the full oath, and surpringly, the oft cited phrase, "First do no harm" is not part of it, although the sentiment is there:

"I swear by Apollo the Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.

"To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the physician’s oath, but to nobody else.

"I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.

"Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.

"Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me."

1. I agree that the doctor probably had better genes than someone who was merely on the order of the mother....including height etc.2. There was another doctor in Utah who fathered dozens....3. My paternal grandmother was a Mortimer by birth. Of course, she was never in Utah.4. Since the mother had an inkling and 38 years have passed, the daughter should be accepting so long as there was no genetic problem.5. Why didn't the bio given say how many children and grandchildren the doctor had?

I would think that if you have permission to inject a substance into a person but actually inject another, that would count as "unwanted touching" and hence battery.

Also, in many states the clock does not start ticking on certain crimes until the age of majority or the time when the victim realized the crime took place. I don't know the relevant law in this instance, but it may well be that the statutory period only began when the woman learned who her father was.

If you listened to your kids, all you'd feed them would be cake & ice cream. But you don't listen to your kids... In this case, the doctor knew that "temple-worthy" sperm beats "tall, blue-eyed" sperm any day.

"He did them a favor!", said the mormon defense attorney to the all-mormon jury.

Out of curiosity I thought I would check to see what volume 2 of the Church Handbook says about artificial insemination. Here is what I found:

————————

21.4.3Artificial Insemination

The Church strongly discourages artificial insemination using semen from anyone but the husband. However, this is a personal matter that ultimately must be left to the judgment of the husband and wife. Responsibility for the decision rests solely upon them.

Artificial insemination of single sisters is not approved. Single sisters who deliberately refuse to follow the counsel of Church leaders in this matter are subject to Church discipline.———————————

I will be very interested to see how this plays out. What this doctor did is problematic on so many levels. How could he live with this sort of behaviour on his conscience and hold the responsible professional and religious positions he did, particularly with all of the honour and respect and power that he received because of those positions?

Will the church do something more than trot out the familiar excuses so recently employed in the Bishop case? Will Elder Cook condemn this case of non-consensual immorality, to use his General Conference phrase that he undoubtedly thought so clever? When will these church leaders cease straining at gnats while swallowing camels?

Idaho Falls is a conservative Mormon belt for juries and malpractice lawsuits against doctors, we were told regarding my father's malpractice case we had against some doctors there years ago.

It is difficult to win a judgment, any judgment, against the doctors in Idaho Falls because the juries are mostly Mormon and favor the HMO there that is a stronghold in their community. Insurance lawyers for the hospital and doctors have a stranglehold on cases there, according to our attorney we retained at the time.

It may be a dollar limit they don't want to go over to exceed some state requirement ... or some other weird reason. You can't seek out the same multi-million dollar lawsuits there to my knowledge like some other states do because of caps or restrictions placed by the Idaho legislature, and a strong insurance and hospital lobby.

Damage awards tend to be larger on the other side of the state, like Boise where the politics are more liberal, and not a part of the Morridor.

In this case there is a pretty clear cut case of fraud though. So it shouldn't be too difficult to establish in a civil malpractice case, and possibly criminal.

Ida Ho Wrote:-------------------------------------------------------> Why is she only suing for $75,000?

In today's NBC news, she's suing the doctor for $10,000,000 in Idaho's US district court (Pocatello.)

"The suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Pocatello, Idaho, and made public on Tuesday, seeks a jury trial and $10 million in damages from Dr. Gerald E. Mortimer, his wife and Obstetrics and Gynecology Associates of Idaho Falls, alleging medical malpractice, breach of contract and fraud."

She's going for the jugular. I don't see a truce at the end of this rainbow. Although many suits are settled before going to trial.

And the prayer is for a sum "...in excess of $75,000, plus costs...", which must be a formulaic. One supposes that the ten million dollar figure was spouted off by one of the plaintiff attorney at some point in time.

The inclusion of the defendant's wife also appears to be formulaic as well: they were a marital unit and the misdeeds done are alleged to be for the benefit of the matrimonial unit.

ETA: and we finally have it confirmed that the parents are part of the lawsuit.

$75,000 is the threshold limit to bring a lawsuit in US District Court. In excess simply means they are asking for beyond that amount. According to news sources, that amount is 10m plus costs, disbursements, attorney fees, and interest.

If they win their judgment the award could easily be in excess of $10 million.

Who would the daughter sue if the doctor had scrupulously followed directions, used anonymous, "correct" sperm and then 37 years later the plaintiff finds out, via the DNA test, what her parents had done, and that the man she called father was not biologically related?

The doctor was naughty and some penalty exacted, but what theory allows for the plaintiff to collect money? The doctor did not harm her! And civil law does not allow for speculative damages, as in if he'd done the job correctly she'd have been a different, better person.

And to hear a price tag of $75,000 has been selected as a remedy...! That will be viewed as an admission of weakness.

If you're referring to my questioning why the daughter should get anything, spit it out and lets discuss it.

I'm certainly not defending the doctor; I think it's a shame he is likely to have escaped, via the passage of so much time, any criminal penalties. For sure he defrauded and emotional damaged his former patients.

I was never a fan of reparations paid to descendants of 'injured' parties...